A
Theological Reflection on Convergent Technologies: Cybernetics and
Nanotechnology – a preliminary reflection
The Issue of
Faith and Science: A Need for New Ecumenical Quest?
Electronics,
Cybernetics, and Nanotechnology are the most advanced hi-tech in these decades.
They are components of a new industrial revolution. Their convergences among
themselves and with the powers are making a great revolutionary impact upon our
civilization. In reference to development of electronics, some call our time as
a technetronic age[1],
and others call it as the third wave of civilization[2]. Now
the nanotechnology is making another chapter of advanced technological
development. Every technological advancement is based upon scientific
breakthroughs. Such scientific and technological development has been regarded
as revolutionary in itself as well as in terms of its social implications. A
report of National Science Foundation of USA (2002) “CONVERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR IMPROVING HUMAN
PERFORMANCE: NANOTECHNOLOGY, BIOTECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND
COGNITIVE SCIENCE” predicts and outlines a revolutionary change in the
history of civilization. I hope that the nature of such
scientific and technological advancement be discussed on this meeting.
In
1978, the ecumenical movement had a monumental discussion on the issue of faith
and science.[3]
Since then we had not had any significant debate on the issue. Now in the light
of new scientific and technological advancement and the powerful convergences
as well as their social, cultural and ecological impact, we need a fresh
discussion.
In
the light of this situation, we will raise in a preliminary way several theological
questions in relation to these technological advancements.
Religion and
Modern Science
Modern
science and technology has created a revolutionary impact upon religions. The
Western scientific mind regards religions as pre-modern, unscientific and
therefore unreliable, if not superstitious. Technological manifestation of the
modern science formed the Western industrial civilization. This has become
global. Arnold Toynbee regarded this early stage of the process as a
penetration of the West into the non-Western civilizations. Many of the
developing nations inherited this attitude for their modernization projects in
politics, economics and cultural life. However, recently the people have begun
to seek religious wisdom to deal with the crises of modern industrial
civilization in the context of globalization and the global empire. Let us
review some aspect of relationship between religion and the modern science.
In
the first place, modern science and technology has been dismantling any mythical,
religious and mysterious perception of the life and nature. The life and nature
has been demythologized. Sacredness of the nature and the sanctity of life
therein, which are attributed by the traditional community, have not been
recognized by the scientific community. Even scientific epistemology has become
triumphant over any other perception of the life and nature. Religion has been
dethroned, and yet liberal theologians have ironically celebrated this as
secularization of the world. Theological
methodologies have carried out the programs of demythologization and secularization
of the world and the universe.[4]
There
is a special relation between the Christian religion and the modern science. Especially
the modern science and Christian religion shared co-habitation in the modern
Western history. For example, the Christian doctrine of creation has integrated
scientific cosmologies.[5]
Nevertheless, the relationship between faith and science has been uneasy one.
Furthermore,
some theologians argue that the Biblical God the Creator is a theological
foundation in this “secularization” process in the modern West. This “demasking”
of sacred character of the universe opened a door for the rational pursuit for
the knowledge of the universe. In a different and critical sense, historian Lynn
White has charged that Christian God is responsible for modern Western science
and technology to be a conqueror of the life and nature.
A
New Context for the Faith and Modern Science?
Now
the humanity is facing at continuous revolutions in science and technological
development in the recent century. Especially the development of the hi-tech
industry such as convergence of electronics and cybernetics, Biotech and
nanotech industries is causing a radical transformations of human societies,
altering the whole civilization, including total meaning of life, and even
threatening the life of all living beings on earth as well as promising the
utopian life. New theological and ethical issues have emerged, and new theological
ethical reflection and creation of new rules and procedures of ethics has
become necessary.
Ethics an Alibi
(?) for the pursuit of unlimited scientific and technological pursuit?
In
this situation, there rises a grave question on some theological and ethical
approaches on the issue of science and technology. In dealing with issues of science
and technology in this context, some proposed theological and ethical framework
causes serious concern.[6] One
example is the creation science and the other is the framework of “Utilitarian
Ethics.”
Directly
or indirectly, theologies and ethics are used to “justify” the scientific and
technological enterprises and projects by the established powers. The issue of
dignity and sanctity of the life and nature as such, for example, is not
considered, but only the utility for humans is considered as ethical criterion.
This type of ethical consideration is bound to be deficient, but it is
problematic especially when the result is not yet determined in the research
and development in the scientific and technological development. The logic that
the unknown and projected utility justifies the decision to carry out a
scientific and technological venture is a deficient ethical rationale, for there
can be unknown consequences in any scientific and technological process.
Politically
speaking, any procedure for ethical consideration can be often a kind of social
“Massage” in order to alleviate public opposition. This may be an Ultimate
Cynicism in ethics. This is well illustrated by “Playing God.[7]” In
the final analysis, the autonomous technocratic power needs no ethics except
its own “legislation.” Ethics about science and technology invariably advocates
the freedom of research.
This
begs a larger question of the power, which integrates the science and
technology as an essential element of domination and “conquer” over the society
and the universe. Christianity and some other religions and ethical
institutions deeply implicated themselves in the nexus of the power of the
market and the empire. Theological reflection and ethical deliberation cannot
carry out its tasks outside of this context.
When
an ethical procedure is created to aid decisions as to scientific and
technological development, the procedure should be transparent and
participatory, particularly for the potential victims of the scientific and
technological project. For concerned religious communities and Christian prophetic
community as well as for concerned scientific communities it is clear that ethics
must be faith-based and faith must be restored. For this reason, we need to
have fresh theological reflection on the issue of faith and science and
technology.
Some
Theological and Religious Considerations
It
is true that the modern Western science has become autonomous generally against
Christian religion.[8]
Modern science has a worldview without any need for God and religion. Modern
theology has been a history of struggle to make God or God-talk sense in the
scientific world. This autonomous character of modern science and technology may
be the reason why any dialogue between faith and science is difficult, and two
discourses have no common ground for dialogue.
I
would like to propose a framework of the holistic and whole life, “a world of
all living beings,” in which modern science and theology be placed to evaluate
their accountability to the life of all living beings. The integral study of life, which studies the world
of all living beings along, with a theology of life, raises some questions to
modern science and technology. The integral study of life sees the whole
universe as the household of life. All living beings are subjects to manage the
OIKONOMIA of life in the universe on all levels of individual living entity,
local community life, life on earth and in the cosmos. There is an integration
of the life with the nature in our understanding of life. In this way, the
concerned issue is not merely related to human beings, but also to the whole
world of living beings in their totality.
The
universe, macro and micro, is not regarded merely as the object of scientific
explanation as physics and modern science views it. It is the “created order,”
an integral order of all living beings. The central theological and ethical
issue is that the whole created order of all living beings are under the threat
of destruction under the technocratic regime of the global market and global
empire.
There
are signs of this grave situation. Globalization in the contemporary world
contains a process of unlimited expansion of corporate freedom for production,
trade and profit maximization. The food and health has become central foci
around which the security and integrity of human life is under threat. The aggravating
hunger and disease in human society is directly connected to the global market.
Biotech industry is deeply implicated in this process.[9] The global
empire has risen to secure the “expansion of this freedom” which President Bush
advocates. The global empire pursues its geopolitical hegemony over the globe
and the universe with the permanent and total war strategy as well as with
omni-caudal weapon system. The whole and every life of all living beings life
exposed to this ominous threat. The freedom of the global market place
accelerates the process of competition ad infinitum, as though the strong has
right to destroy any enemy, and only the strong fittest has the privilege of
abundance of life as well as its survival. The global market and its scientific
and technological process mediate relationships among human beings as well as
among other living beings. The resultant conflicts in the human society on the
globe become complex and intensively violent. This social and ecological order
has become the vortex of violent destruction, and the security of life is under
an ultimate threat of death and destruction. The global market and global
communication system erodes the very culture of community of living beings as
well as tissue of human community. The identity, beauty, perception and spirit of
living beings is under the threat of being destroyed, “colonized” and
manipulated through commoditization, cultural hegemony and powerful mediation
of modern communication. The religion is not free of this process, and often it
is symbiotically integrates itself into this cultural and spiritual process as
well as it reacts to it.
Here
the politics of the global empire seeks to rule the globe and the universe with
its power. The order of life, global and universal, is at the whim of this
power. This power undermines every opportunity and occasion of authentic
democratic participation. It is suppressed everywhere. The more the freedom of
the capital expands, the more participation of living subjects would be
undermined. Under the global empire, democratic dynamics of every nation state
and their popular sovereignty is in jeopardy. Under the global regime of the
War on Terror, every national power created comprehensive apparatus of surveillance
and control of any political participation that challenges the established
power. Now the global empire has created and is operating the global super intelligence
and surveillance network. The global empire is seeking to dominate the globe,
and the global market is to manage the total life on earth
What
we are proposing is a fresh framework of the politics of common life for local,
national, and global community of life for all living beings that is secure and
abundant. We are not to deal the lifeless universe, but to live as living
beings together in the community, local, global and cosmic.
1) All
religions affirm sacredness of the life in the universe.
All
human communities have this mysterious sense about the life and its universe. However,
science does not have any space for sacredness of the life and nature. For the
science and technology is secular by nature and free of any religious sense. Asian
understanding of the universe is an organic whole in which all beings
participate. The universe of all living beings is an inherently religious and
ethical order.[10]
This has been dismissed by modern scientific worldview.
Depletion
of the mystery in the universe of all living beings does not allow any role of
religion or ethics, which is based upon faith(s). This would be one of the key
issues of the science and technology.
2) Modern
science objectifies the life as well as all other things.
The
modern science does not recognize any space for the subjecthood (Juchesung) of
all living beings, for it can only objectify living beings for understanding
and explanation.[11]
Even the subjecthood of living beings can be understood only through
objectification. Cartesian and Kantian subject has no room for any living
agency, which is the core of the subjecthood of all living beings as
individuals or as a whole. Modern epistemological subject is granted the
primacy of objective reason, which does not recognize the whole and full
subjethood of all living beings. It is a human reason centered.
Theology
of Christian faith and religious faith of the world recognizes that all living
beings are subjects and covenant partners of God. For the Integral Study of
Life understands that all living beings are participating subjects in the
garden of life. Jacque Monod (Chance and Necessity) has recognized the “mystery”
of the living being’s birth of its kinds, although he does not allow any
statement about the life, which is in other than scientific language. Does this
mean that there is any room in the scientific discourse for theological and
ethical statement about the life? How this would be possible?
The
living beings are not those of self-duplication and “autopoieo.” The subject is
free and creative in the life of living beings, giving birth and managing life
(Oikonomia of life). The language of physics, chemistry and biology cannot
explain the life without reducing the subjecthood to an abstract reason. Religions
of the world, old and contemporary, all recognize the irreducible and holistic subjecthood
of living beings. How can we close the gap between these two languages?
3) Science and
technology uses the method of reduction and fragmentation in the scientific
investigation, in control and manipulation.
Science
and technology fragments the life into bits and pieces of cells, molecules, DNA
etc in the life sciences. Reduced and fragmented parts of life are re-constructed
for scientific understanding. Therefore, a scientific study of life is
determined by methodology of reduction and fragmentation. Life is fragmented
into cells, DNAs and nanoparticles. Nanotechnology is a classical example of
fragmentation into particles in nanoscale. It objectifies, fragments and
manipulates all beings, living and non-living, in the form of nanoacale
particles. However, this is changing, for the convergence of technologies makes
technologies more powerful than ever, and it would bring about a comprehensive change.
This comprehensiveness is arbitrary, designed by technological “convergence.”
The nature of this convergence needs further discussion. Convergence also
demands a multidisciplinary approach for management of technologies. Is this
convergence seeking for any holistic life? On the other hand, is it still
arbitrary design of life? How do we close the gap between the designed order of
life and the “created” order of life for all living beings?
When
we come a cross the theory of GAIA by Loverock, we recognize the living earth. However,
this is not a scientific notion of the whole earth as a living being, it is a calash
or collection of fragments of scientific knowledge. A Korean physicist, Dr.
Zhang Hoe-ik, develops a scientific notion of the global life as the whole
life. He points out that the fragmented individual living beings and their
simple collections cannot be a sufficient basis of ethics. These scientific
observations are indications that theology and ethics demand the notion of a
whole and integral notion of life.
Theology
of life understands that the life of all living beings is holistic and
therefore it is meaningful. The integral study of life seeks to overcome the
modern scientific methodology through multidisciplinary and holistic methodology.
4) Convergent
Symbiosis of Technologies Forms Technocracy:
Science
and technology advances in the context of global market, in the context of
politics of nation states and its military relations and in the context of
culture of modernity.
Science
and technology serves the capital for its profit maximization and its expansion
of power. It serves the political powers of the nation states and the empire.
It also serves the military for its hegemony. It serves the power of the media
industry. We cannot speak of the science and technology in a power vacuum.
Science and technology is an integral part of the very texture of the power.
Science
and technology is not a pure theory and neutral tools for use. It is the core
of a technocratic system of society in which science and technology is supreme.
I would call this system a technocracy. Convergence of technologies is
fundamentally takes place in context of the collusion of powers. Electronic
hi-tech is converged with the biology and biotechnology is developed. Biotech
industry is the most “promising and thriving development” in the global market
place today. It is converged with the communication media to make the media
powerful. The communication and media industry is the third sector of the power
in the collusive complex of the authorities. It is converged with the military technology to
create cyber warfare strategy. Now the
military weapon system is omni-cidal, destroying all living beings on earth. When
it is converged with the apparatus of political, police and intelligence surveillance,
it becomes a most powerful political instrument.
A
series of convergences of such technologies as cyber and nanotechnologies is
ultimately with economic, political, military and cultural powers, which become
an almighty technocracy. Technocracy is the most powerful form of power, which
responds in scientific and technological fashion to all issues of history, society
and the cosmos. Technocracy undermines the nature of sovereignty of all living
beings. It allows any sovereignty within the limits of technocratic control. In
reality, it does not allow any sovereign subjecthood of all living beings, including
human beings.
This
technocracy as the most powerful agency of the power is problematic, for it
does not allow a free space for faith and ethics for all living beings. Any
instrumentalism of science and technology does not recognize the power
character of the science and technology.
5) Democracy
and Technocracy
Democracy
demands direct participation of all living beings as well as all people, when
their life is at stake. Yet technocracy shuns any democratic participation in
the present situation. It is argued that democratic controls can prevent any
misuse and undue risk that will damage life. Democratic regimes, domestic and
international, have not been reliable due inherent nature of scientific and
technological information that is unsharable among the subjects of living
beings for technical and political reasons. When politics is matter of power,
then it is very difficult to conceive any participatory process to make a sane
and wise decision on scientific and technological development. In reality,
transnational corporate powers and their political allies control the
scientific and technological development and their use.
Already
decades ago John K. Galbraith (Industrial State) has warned that American
democracy is in crisis, because the “techno-structure” of the corporations is
adopted into the state bureaucracy and in the military, the state can no longer
respond to the democracy process of participation. Jacque Elull has also
pointed out a similar point.
The
universe is the garden of life, where all living beings participate. This means
that the regime of rules, if it is going to be viable, must be radically participatory,
going beyond the current representative democracy; it should be a universal
democracy, going beyond national boundaries; and it should be a true democracy,
in which all living beings can participate. This means a new politics. The
present liberal democratic system is no longer functional for any effective
participatory process.
The
laws and rules to control the scientific and technological advancement by
democratic means are regarded to be in favor of powers and principalities in
the global market and in the corridor of power politics. Even democracy is
regarded convenient and obstructive to current and future scientific discovery
and technological innovation. Popular debates and media reports are regarded ill
informed and misleading.
What
would be a feasible form of democracy? Democracy for all living beings is to
have full participation of every sovereign being. This demands to have a
charter that mandates the right of life for all living beings. Theologically
speaking, God made all creatures as God’s partners in covenant community. All
living beings participate God’s sovereign reign. In Messianic Reign, all living
beings and their nations participate to celebrate the feast of life. This
demands a democratic revolution in the current political situation, where the
powers and principalities dominate. There are growing signs that demand direct participation
in the affairs of the future of universe as well as of all ling beings on
earth.
6. Technocracy
of the Capital
Patent,
Private Property and the Market Power: The power of capital in the global
market regime seeks unlimited power to expand its reach to the end of universe and
to maximize its profits. This is another face of technocracy. The global capital
has become mammon; and its logic victimizes people and all living beings; and
it exploits infinitely the reservoir of resources in the universe. The WARC
declared a faith stance against economic injustice and ecological destruction
after 7 years of long deliberation.
Modern
science and technology function in this context of the global capital
domination. The capital does have an excessive power to the point of extreme
greed. This greed in its personal form or in its collective and institutional
form plays a god, when it victimizes massively living beings without constrain.
All religious truths recognize this point. “Greed begets sin; and sin begets
death.” This is the biblical injunction. Jesus teaches that God and Mammon
cannot be served at the same time.
When
Hi-tech convergence of the biotech, cybernetic, and nanotech industries, and communication
and media industry, builds symbiotic relations with political bureaucracy and military
industry, its power and its potential destructive capacity is beyond human
imagination.
Theologically
speaking, ethical rules are not enough to deal with the totalistic tyranny of
the global capital in its technocratic form. It must be resisted as a matter of
faith, and, at the same time, there should entirely be creation of new vision
of Oikonomia of life in the universe for all living beings.
7) Messianic
Claims of the Technocracy
Modern
Science and Technology has set of messianic claims. Its advancement will
eliminate the pain of the physical labor, and the society of leisure would be
created for human beings to pursue happiness without cost.
Science
and technological advancement will eliminate the hunger from the surface of the
earth. It is claimed that the growth of the industrial economy will eliminate
hunger and poverty. Especially, biotech and nanotech has such claims. Pharmaceutical
industries also claim that development of medicine will eliminate diseases and
illness. Biotech and nanotech has claims not only to cure illness, but also to
improve heath and physical conditions for the human beings. Furthermore,
science and technology can solve the problem of the ecological destruction and
degradation.
These
claims are not only unwarranted, but also they have a messianic tone. This may
be called “Scientific and technological soteriology.”
8) Utopian
Vision of Convergent Technologies
Technological
utopia is pictured and propagated very widely. The following example is clearly
shows our point. Although many speak dystopia of the technological world.
Dan Farber
(, what utopia can technology deliver? August 9, 2002) writes about a report of
the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce,
“The
report, with the hefty title "Converging Technologies for Improving Human
Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and
Cognitive Science,…call for harnessing the converging
strands of science and technology to transform society and bring about a golden
age: "Understanding of the mind and brain will enable the creation of a
new species of intelligent machine systems that can generate economic wealth on
a scale hitherto unimaginable. Within a half-century, intelligent machines
might create the wealth needed to provide food, clothing, shelter, education,
medical care, a clean environment, and physical and financial security for the
entire world population. Intelligent machines may eventually generate the
production capacity to support universal prosperity and financial security for
all human beings. Thus, the engineering of the mind is much more than the
pursuit of scientific curiosity. It is more even than a monumental
technological challenge. It is an opportunity to eradicate poverty and usher in
the golden age for all human kind."
The
path to this utopian vision of the future is the synergistic combination of
nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science
(under the acronym NBIC). Among the possible technological achievements
envisioned are brain-to-brain interaction, direct brain control of devices via
neuromorphic engineering, retarding the aging process, elimination of communications
barriers due to disability or language, and invulnerable data networks.”
This
report betrays the tragic sense of human history. Belief that infinite conquest
of the universe, macro and micro, and limitless manipulation of life with the
convergent technology will bring a utopia to the world is simply contrary to
our sense of the world, God has created and sustained.
9) Mighty
Power of Technology in Place of “Divine Awe”
Some
theologians affirm “Technopia.” For example, Kenneth
Vaux writes in Theology Today (Technological Utopia and the Theology of
Hope), Man responsibly engages in technologic or
cybernetic mastery of the environment as he acknowledges that his life is
situated in the creative action of God, as he recognizes the fact that his
ingenuity is rooted in his createdness Imago Dei, as he perceives that world
order and change are dynamically given by the Perpetual impulse of the divine
spirit ... His own creative activity is not pioneering in the sense that lie
works alone. He is co-worker as divine power penetrates his conceptualization,
decision-making, and implementation.”
He believes
that our time of cybernetics is an exciting era of interface between technology
and theology.[12] Some
argue that there is a profound underpinning of religious piety in the modern
scientific discoveries.
[13]
However,
a theological question rises at the point in which humans experience the “Mighty
Power” of modern science and technology beyond their control. This experience
generates a religious awe. Whether the technological power leads to utopia or
to dystopia, it is indeed powerful. Its mighty power of invention, control and
manipulation as well as its power destruction generates the religious awe. What
is needed is not any religious justification of its power but to seek to tame
it to the service of life.
A Concluding
Word
We
have raised some preliminary theological questions as to the issue of faith and
science. We feel that this agenda should be a new ecumenical quest at this time
of revolutionary scientific technological advancement. We also feel that
Christian faith has been too closely associated with the technocratic
development. This may be almost a symbiosis between the Christian religion and
the modern Western science. We need to look at from the victims of the science
and technology in the third world and in the cosmos. Furthermore, we need to
look at the issue in macro-ecumenical context, mobilizing the faiths of world religions
as well as popular wisdom. Ethics and especially Christian ethics demand a new
framework of deliberation.
This
means that the whole wisdom of life for all living beings should be drawn for
the universe of a theological and ethical discourse from all religions, philosophies,
popular wisdom and insights, rising from the suffering and victimization of all
living beings.
All
living beings are sailing the sea of suffering and pain toward the Garden of Life
[2] Alvin TofflerThe Third Wave: Books by Alvin Toffler. "A new civilization is emerging in our
lives, and blind men everywhere are trying to suppress it..."
[3] WCC Church
[4] Bultmann and Cox
[5] The Newtonian and Whiteheadian cosmologies are examples.
[6] Presidential Advisory Commission on Bioethics in the US
[7] Playing God? : Human Genetic Engineering
and the Rationalization of Public Bioethical Debate (Morality and Society
Series) (Paperback)
by John H. Evans "On 23 February 1997
by John H. Evans "On 23 February 1997
[8] The story of Galileo is an historical example.
[9] Korean Biotech Industry Project is a manifestation of these
phenomena.
[10] Confucianism, Taoism and Hinduism are examples. Especially the Book
of Change, I-Ching, is a good example of Asian wisdom of life.
[11] Jacques Lucien Monod''' (1910 – 1976)(Chance
and Nessecity, Vintage 1971) has recognized that the free
subjecthood of living organism cannot be scrutinized by the scientific methodology.
[13] David
Noble, The Religion of Technology : The
Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention 1999.
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